5 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE Saturday Night's Main Event (14 Dec - Results & Review)

3. The Retro Feeling

Knowing that WWE was leaning hard into the nostalgia aspect of Saturday Night’s Main Event, one things fans of a certain age were keeping a close eye on was how they’d embrace and marry up the feel of 80s and 90s WWF programming with today’s product.

After seeing the red, white and blue ring ropes, the narrow aisle winding down from a minimalist entrance, and the referees wearing blue shirts with ties, the verdict was that WWE successfully blended the two eras, essentially updating SNME for today’s audience while paying proper homage to the original. They also managed to include some classic-era superstars like Greg “The Hammer” Valentine, Tito Santana, Koko B. Ware and Jimmy Hart in addition to Jesse “The Body” Ventura in a very unobtrusive way.

The Body deserves a special shout-out here for his role as guest commentator. Ventura slipped right back into his role as a heel announcer quite well, taking shots at Cody Rhodes like he was the modern-day Hulk Hogan. His outrage at the conclusion of the main event only fed into Kevin Owens’ frustration that would boil over after the show went off the air.

Unlike previous old school Raw episodes, the program wasn’t dripping with forced nostalgia that distracted from the current superstars or felt like WWE simply raided their storage warehouse and slapped together a “historic” display. They might not do this again, but if WWE decided to keep several classic aspects on future episodes, it wouldn’t look all that out of place.